Letter: Keep beach absent of cars

Alan F. KaySt. Augustine

Published Monday, June 24, 2002

Editor: I am a season ticket holder who goes to the beach several times a week, often with friends visiting St. Augustine. The absence of cars is much appreciated. A warm, sunny, sandy beach, looking over the ocean as far as the eye can see, what we have in this park on most days, is the envy of the world. That image is used in TV commercials as a symbol of what the good retirement people dream about. Cars competing with sun-bathers are never included in the ads, for good reason.

On a practical level, those cars are very dangerous, when mingled with people who are there for fun, sport, relaxation or bathing and don't want to be thinking about traffic, which already takes up all too much of our road travel, commuting, working and shopping time. Accidents are inevitable. The city, the county and the state know it and should know it. People lying on the sand are not particularly visible and some have paid the price of being crushed by cars. The victims or their relatives can, should, and will sue the appropriate authority; and wind up with expensive, even when reasonable, settlements that are passed on to the taxpayers. Those experiences led to banning cars on our beach. If the ban is rescinded, the authorities will have no excuse as they might once have had. Now the record of past experiences shows that they have to expect accidents and compensate financially for them. It is not cheap.

We taxpayers are fed up with paying for short-sighted or lack of regulation.

Thank you for every consideration, and have a pleasant day at the beach.